“JOSEPH RICKETT and GEORGE DUNE,
  Sierra Leone Labourers.

  “To the Honourable
  K. Maccauley, Esq.  M.C. &c. 
  Freetown.”

The original settlers of this colony, we learn from “Murray’s Historical Discoveries,” consisted of about four hundred blacks, and sixty whites, (the latter chiefly women of abandoned character,) who arrived at Sierra Leone the 9th of May, 1787.  These blacks, as is well known, were part of those that went to Great Britain; having been sent with the white loyalists, among the Bahama Islands, Nova Scotia, and England, at the conclusion of the American war:  and twelve hundred more of the same description of American blacks agreed to leave Nova Scotia for Sierra Leone, on terms proposed to them by the Sierra Leone Company, where they arrived in March, 1792:  and in December, 1793, Lieut.  Beaver arrived at Sierra Leone, with the few survivors that had abandoned the colony of Bulama.

The present inhabitants arc principally composed of negroes of a variety of nations; Maroons from Jamaica, negroes who were captured or had deserted in the American war, some from England, some from Nova Scotia, some from disbanded West India regiments, and many prize slaves, that come under the name of liberated Africans, who from their industry and prudence have saved a little money and settled at Freetown in various capacities.  There are besides a great number of persons residing here in succession under the denomination of strangers.  These are people from various parts of the interior of Africa, namely, Timmanees, Foulahs, Mandingoes, &c. &c.  There are also a great number of Kroomen, formerly upwards of a thousand, but a late order in council reduced them to 600, with the intention of introducing and encouraging the liberated Africans to come forward as labourers, fishermen, mechanics, sailors, soldiers, &c. &c.

Sierra Leone has a large market-house, with a market held daily, where the inhabitants may be well supplied with most of the tropical fruits and vegetables, and some from Europe.  Poultry is abundant and reasonable.  Beef and mutton are in most common use.  The animals are small, a quarter of beef weighing on an average between 50 and 60 lbs. and a quarter of mutton from 5 to 8 lbs.  Pork and lamb are seldom sent to table, and I never met with veal.  The colony is principally supplied with stock, (viz. bullocks, sheep, and fowls,) by the Foulahs, Mandingoes, Sousoos, and Timmanees.  They carry the fowls on their head in a large basket, and their necessaries in a sheep-skin bag fastened on the top of it.  Perhaps the reason why veal and lamb are but rarely seen at table is in consequence of the bullocks and sheep having to travel a considerable distance, and fresh pork is almost too gross a food for a hot country.